An ever-increasing number of people across the world find it difficult to decide whether god exists or not. They find that there are arguments for and against. Loosely, this would be called agnosticism, a term introduced by Thomas Huxley in 1876, though practised since ancient times. Why ‘loosely’? Because Huxley’s definition was slightly more strict — he said agnosticism is a method in which you do not come to any intellectual conclusion till something is demonstrated or found to be demonstrable as true. He coined the word from the Greek ‘a’ (not) and ‘gnosis’ (knowledge). Agnosticism comes in various shades — strong, weak or even apathetic. Also, it should not be confused with nihilism or ‘shunya vada’ which holds that nothing at all is knowable. Buddha is said to have practised a certain kind of agnosticism, at least on questions related to afterlife. He was silent on questions like “whether a saint will exist in some way after his death”. This later evolved into a whole doctrine of agnosticism towards questions that had two alternative answers. Recently, some zealous scientists developed complex equations to prove the existence of god. This pushed several others into the arms of agnosticism, as they said they could not understand mathematics and hence were devoid of proof. Some famous agnostics: Mark Twain, Brad Pitt, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Carl Sagan, Marie Curie, Charles Darwin, Larry King. PS: For those who like splitting hairs, there is also ignosticism. Practised by certain philosophers like A J Ayers, it says that unless the term ‘god’ or ‘deity’ is first defined, they can’t decide whether to believe in it or not.
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And in the middle are AGNOSTICS!!
